The people of Ft. Smith (and I am a former resident) are now very proud of their association with Judge Parker. But such was not always the case. From the Daily Iowa State Press, 28 September 1899, p. 2:

"Hanging Judge Hurts Town
Record of One of Fort Smith's Celebrities an Injury to Business

From the Philadelphia Times: The Arkansas legislature will be petitioned to forbid the sale of a book. The citizens of Fort Smith have the petition well under way. The petition states that the book is calculated to prejudice the public against Fort Smith. The book is the life story of the "Hanging Judge," the sternest of all American justices. It is the biography of Judge Issac Charles Parker. The title is "Hell on the Border." . . .

[Parker] was burned and hanged in effigy in the Indian Territory. On the day of his death there was a joyful riot in the old jail at Fort Smith, Ark. . . .

He was at once the most esteemed man in Arkansas and the most hated man in Indian Territory."

--meursault